


It's Just That Time of Day

by Crazythatcounts



Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:32:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazythatcounts/pseuds/Crazythatcounts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Worth has a schedule. He loathes to admit it, but he sort of has one. This is what it would be if he wrote it down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Just That Time of Day

Contrary to all set forth opinions, Worth did actually have a schedule. No sane man or woman would ever assume this, however, and Worth rather liked that fact. It was just as well – the thing itself was loose and fancy free, and he didn't apply himself to it that much in the first place, but it did exist. Worth had never bothered to write the thing out, because if he wrote it out, then it was set in stone and there was a begrudging obligation to obey it. There was also the fact that there would be no end to the comments on it from Conrad if it was ever found. Therefore, it remained stubbornly in Worth's brain where it could be followed or discarded at general leisure.

But, if Worth had ever decided at some point to set it on paper, and thusly bind himself to it, it would have looked something like this:

**12 PM: Wake Up**

Doc Worth never rose before noon. It wasn't in him to get up early, and most of his customers were night dwellers, anyway, so there was just no reason for it. So at noon, he would roll out of bed, greeting the afternoon sun through the grimy windows. His coat hung on the door, and he normally slept in at least the shirt he wore the day before, if not the pants, so getting dressed implied putting on his coat and not much else. He would change shirts occasionally, but only before bed, because thinking so much right out of sleep was something Worth never felt much like doing.

At some point during this process of waking and dressing, Worth would fish a cigarette from his coat and light it, letting the calming smoke fill his lungs and then letting it out in a slow, steady stream before beginning where he left off.

Some mornings, Worth would even go get breakfast, er, lunch, from somewhere. This was not a staple, nor was it frequent enough to become part of the schedule itself, but occasionally, he would gather himself together and head out onto the streets to find something edible. Most of the time, these were mornings where the only thing he felt he could do to cure the massive hangover he had from various substances was put something in his system. The rest of the days, he figured he could go without food until dinner, or later.

The morning in question, the Doc found himself wandering the streets for food, even without a hangover or other good reason to be eating at the present time. He didn't question why he was out scavenging – he knew himself well enough that there was a decent reason somewhere. The fag dangling between his teeth bounced to his footsteps as he glided down the street to the only place he ever went to eat this early in the day.

The Waffle House was grungy, slightly creepy, but trustworthy despite its faults and the food wasn't half bad, either. Worth had taken a liking to it quickly, since the inside resembled a trash and paper free version of his office. That, and he was at the point with the place that upon entering, he didn't have to wait for a table like the sign asked so pleasantly. He could saunter down to a table in the back corner, prop his feet up, and they'd have a cup of black coffee out in as long as it took to make the damn thing.

That morning, as Worth nursed the coffee and watched the general populace shuffling out the window, he was somehow brought to muse on his favorite failure of a vampire and the artfag's general like for coffee. He wondered if the vampire would be able to drink black coffee if he was alive, for the man seemed more like the frilly coffee that didn't actually taste anything like coffee type . He chuckled to himself, his tongue numb (most likely burnt) from the heat of the coffee but he really didn't care.

The food made it out a few minutes later: bacon and eggs. No pancakes, no whipped cream, no syrup or jelly – Worth didn't order frills on his meal, and therefore it came out as the basics. Just grease, protein and bacon fat. He wasn't a man for the unnecessary. Bacon as the meat, and eggs as the side, nothing more, nothing less. The bacon was normally crunchy – occasionally it would be a tad soggy from the grease, but he could care less – and the eggs were sunny side up and a little runny.

He would eat quickly and in silence, gulping down the last of the still piping hot coffee before heading nonchalantly for the door. He didn't leave his cash, since he did happen to have a tab that he generally paid at the end of the month, but that was only if he actually felt like it, so months could pass and several angry letters from the Waffle House manager could get sent to the wrong address before it would get done. Worth was smart enough to know better to give them his own address when they insisted upon having it, and he really didn't pity the person that lived in a place with the house number six-six-six.

**1 PM – 11PM: Allotted Free Time (I.E. Time to Do Whatever the Shit Needs to Get Done)**

After eating, or in most cases, not eating, Worth would take to the streets to do whatever needed to be done for the day. The span of time was marked horrendously long, and there was normally a lot of time to simply kill. He usually did his out-of-office tasks before dark, though, because there was no telling when Hanna would burst in bleeding from every orifice or carting along a starved beast of some sort and requiring the Doc's help. And the last thing Worth wanted was Hanna _looking for him_ and only managing to stir up more trouble.

This time normally allotted at least one stop by the local drug store in order to obtain more smoking material and the occasional slushie. After spending a few minutes harassing the man behind the counter – harassment coming in the form of crass speech and complete lack of filter or caring for much of anyone – he would exit the store and continue to the other general stop during his day.

The liquor store was always happy to see him. Especially a sober version of him, because sober Worth was most likely in there to change the previously mentioned status and it required the purchasing of several bottles of various types of booze – whiskey was a particular favorite, with rather cheap wine a second. Worth paid cash for this, because there was little way the store was going to accept any sort of tab. Tabs were for bars, and apparently, Waffle Houses.

Oh well, the restaurant could wait another month for Worth to pay the tab.

With the booze bagged, the cigarettes in his pocket with his lighter, Worth would then proceed along one of several paths. One, he could go ahead and drink a bottle or two of the whiskey alone in his office. At the thought the bandages on his arms – red with fresh blood under his coat – felt a little tighter, knowing what other activities normally came with the action of Worth's drinking. Cutting himself was most certainly one of those, along with overusing Hanna's various runes to create the kind of high that would make an LSD junkie pine for it.

Two, he could find Lamont and pester him a bit. That was, if he could find Lamont, and if the currently clientele wasn't like some of the previous – too pretty, too slutty, and too quick to bite Worth's head off at even the tamest passing comment.

He could also go wake up Confag. The sport in itself was enough to sustain Worth for several hours, not to mention he could even apply alcohol and end up with the other kind of high Worth reveled in. The sexy kind. Add biting, blood-play, etcetera, and Worth was always entertained by the idea. Most of the time, though, he left that for later and decided the whiskey needed love first, because Conrad would be by at some point for dinner and there was no need to rush things that would happen eventually.

Today, Worth decided to do something different. After taking an extra half-hour to break open a payphone and drain it of its coins, he meandered back to his office and put away the booze and the coins. Payphones were easy targets, and Worth had to make sure he could keep buying cigarettes even if he lacked in customers. There was no doing without cigarettes.

When all was said and done, he went upstairs into his just-as-disgusting living space and removed his coat, hanging it on a knob that belonged to something, before heading into his bathroom. The tiles were green – they were white at some point, Worth remembered, but that was terribly long ago – and a film existed permanently on the tiny mirror over the sink. Worth shucked off his shirt – to the floor it went, where Worth wouldn't have been surprised if it moved away, either of its own accord or because he managed to cover a wayward rat – and he turned to the plain claw-footed tub with rust around the bolts holding the feet on and a ring around the facet.

He turned the water on, going ahead and letting his pants join his shirt on the floor as he waited for the water to turn from the red-rust brown it started as to the slightly milky tint that was the best Worth could ever coax out of the thing. Most people would be appalled at the state of the bathroom in general, and possibly gag at the fact that the skinny, scarred man was willing to get into a tub that was nearly opaque, and that was without soap. Worth, however, felt rather proud whenever he could get the facet to produce something akin to normal looking water.

Climbing into the tub, he turned off the facet and made to relax. Worth rarely let himself have much relaxation time during the day, which was why bathing was such a rarity. He preferred a post coital shower late at night, but something in him compelled him to take a few minutes that day to relax. It was probably the same thing that compelled him to eat, too. It was almost like a mother was watching over him, telling him to relax and eat and wash behind his ears.

(When Worth later found out that it was in fact Mother's Day, he laughed long and hard at the irony.)

He lit a cigarette while he was in the tub, never mind the ash getting into the water, and settled in for a long session of doing nothing. His idle mind wandered over various topics, including liquor prices, invoices, Conrad's expected visit later that night, who Hanna may or may not bring to his door step, and the boxes Lamont was supposed to drop off at some point that contained much of anything from blood to scalpels to a set of books on witch-doctoring that he had asked about. Doing nothing for a day was quite nice.

**2 AM – If It Hasn't Happened Already, Cue Hanna**

Worth spent a long time in the tub that afternoon to the point where when he removed himself, and put on clean clothes, it was already getting into the late night hours. He really didn't mind too much – Hanna hadn't burst in and Lamont wasn't lingering, so he had missed nothing important. As the night wore on, he moved about his office, unpacking a box here, putting out the current cigarette there. By the time it got to two in the morning, he was in his chair, trying to look like he wasn't waiting, which was a lie.

It didn't, however, mean that when the door slammed open Worth didn't jump out of his seat. There, in the door, was the zombie character, carrying Hanna in his arms, who had blood on his face and his arm didn't look like it really should be bending in that direction.

Even when Worth applied swearing the situation never seemed to improve. Instead, he had to go with what he always did, which entailed putting Hanna back together and sending them on their way. He had really been expecting them at that point, so to see that Hanna was indeed alive and not missing or dead was worth having to deal with him and his constant need for a Doctor.

The Doctor would never admit, however, that he might actually care for the little twerp, and always filled the visits with various threats, all telling Hanna not to come back because there was no way the Doc was going to do this again because like hell if he cared about the kid.

No one dared to point out that both parts of that sentence were a lie.

**3 AM – Time To Fag It Up**

Worth's favorite time of the night normally came after Hanna had departed with empty threats tossed at his heels. That time of night was marked on another mental calendar, and that belonged to a certain vampire named Conrad.

Now, Conrad's mark differed from Worth's in one general respect – Conrad's had a two minute window for the In-and-Out dinner process, and Worth's had an hour or so marked away. Conrad assumed that he would be able to get in and out without anything happening. Worth simply knew better. The game they played was always the same: Worth tried to rile Conrad up as much as possible, which would inevitably lead to blood and rough, dirty sex, while Conrad tried to limit his time in the office as much as possible. If there were definite winners and losers, Conrad would be the loser and Worth the winner every single night.

Worth would make sure he was prepared by ten 'til three, with a scalpel in his pocket and a fresh cigarette to his lips. As of late, he'd been timing the vampire's arrivals, and they had been getting a little earlier every night to the point where Worth expected Conrad around three. He used to show up any time between three-thirty and four.

The thought intrigued the waiting Worth as he sat in his chair and drained the cigarette of every last cancer causing drop. Conrad professed that there was nothing but hate between them, but Worth didn't believe him for a second. Maybe Conrad kept coming back because of the blood, though Worth doubted that fact. If Conrad was simply hungry he had enough contact with Lamont to set up deliveries to his own place when he pleased. Worth crossed his legs. That left either him, or the sex with him. He couldn't tell which.

If Conrad was coming back for him, though, why would he profess his undying hate every third sentence? Did he really hate him, or was that just a façade for something else? Worth didn't think it was a façade, or it was, at least, a façade based in truth. There was a definite level of hate present between the two of them that Worth didn't mind. Maybe Conrad didn't mind, either. Maybe he liked hating Worth and he came by to hate Worth because if he didn't hate Worth, if he didn't have that hate towards Worth present in their current relationship like thing, then what did he have? Love?

Worth heard the door slam and as brought out of his thoughts by the subject of his thinking, who was standing at the door, hands on the threshold, already hating Worth with every fiber of his being. Hating because he needed to hate. Worth knew the time without checking it, and Conrad was late. It was nearing four AM. He voiced such without moving, and Conrad's seething retort began what Worth knew only as the intricate tango they danced every night.

The tango was messy and faulty and made up the reason why Conrad never got in and out in little time. It was a tango they danced together, never knowing who was dancing the lead and always switching back and forth between parts. It was sloppy and awful and no one would have won any sort of award for it, but neither minded because Conrad got dinner and Worth got a night worth staying up for and it left them both less miserable than before (though never really happy).

That night, though, Worth faulted step and halted the dance, keeping them stuck hand in hand, legs tangled in a way neither were used to, when he asked the question on his mind since early that day. 

"Why'd'ya keep comin' back?"

He didn't expect an answer right out. He expected the excuse that Conrad came only for the blood and he expected the avoidance and the yelling. He didn't expect the words that came out of Conrad's mouth.

"I don't know." Conrad said, his voice low and confused and a little to open and vulnerable for Worth's taste. There was a moment's pause, a comfortable silence permeating the grime of the room and settling about them like flies on a rotting horse. An unasked question lingered around them, basking in the silence. _If he doesn't know, then why are we here? Why are we still doing this?_

Conrad was apparently not comforted by the lingering question and quickly filled the silence with the general snappy denials and irate excuses. Worth laughed because suddenly they were stepping back into the tango right where they left off, shouting and cursing at each other like an old married couple, and this was where the comfort was hidden. It didn't matter _why_ they were there, they just were, and that's how it always had been.

And then, as they shouted and drew closer, came the next set of steps – the feeding and the sex. It all started with a simple punch to the face – Conrad to Worth, normally, because Worth would rather be in pain, because pain was pleasure in his twisted sense of the world – and then suddenly they were kissing, wet and sloppy and bruising, snaggletoothed fang digging into lips, the taste of tobacco on both their tongues, nails digging into shirts and pants.

At some point, Worth would shed his coat, and Conrad might dare to take off his top as well, though that rarely happened, especially not so early on. They fumbled with other articles of clothing, hands roving, grabbing and squeezing, leaving dark marks and bruises on hips and backs and thighs, all the while moving hurriedly and heatedly for the stairs. Some nights, like that night in particular, they didn't make it up the stairs, pants and shirts and everything shed already, and no need to move further because the stairs provided leverage.

Who put what where normally dealt with who was where when the first bite was laid. That specific night, Worth was the one pressed against the grimy wall, the gravel digging into his bare back, his ass on the railing, the stark line digging into his thigh muscles and Conrad's hands painful on Worth's thighs.

The first bite was always the catalyst for everything after – the pleasure seared through Worth and he threw his head back, banging against the wall rather painfully as Conrad bite down harder. He resisted the urge to howl with the heat as Conrad entered him without warning. Sure, there was pain, but Worth reveled in the pain, hands digging into the back of Conrad's unnecessary shirt at the waves and spasms.

The pounding only drove Worth harder against the wall, and the sex was take-no-mercy rough. Blood ran in streams down Worth's shoulders as Conrad fed, pounding into the doctor in a dizzying rhythm. With the pain turned pleasure coursing through his veins and Conrad hitting sweet Jesus right there and not being able to feel his feet for the blood loss, Worth was quickly over the edge, staining the unnecessary clothing with his seed, legs pulling Conrad so deep that the vampire wasn't far behind, moaning against Worth's shoulder, a rivet of blood escaping his lips and rolling down the ball of the skinny white shoulder.

Conrad didn't back off until the blood was clotting against Worth's pale skin and the man was nearly passed out from the entire experience. They stumbled up the stairs, Worth mostly carried because his knees refused to work and his feet had no blood and the room was spinning. Conrad was grumbling and complaining that the machoist was going to kill himself like this someday and he should be damn glad Conrad had stopped when he did as they entered the disgusting bathroom. Worth chuckled as hard as he could at the face Conrad always seemed to make when they went in there, like he had expected it to change and it hadn't, and for that Conrad dropped him on the floor.

The next thing Worth knew, a wet cloth came in contact with his face and he laughed harder, using the thing to clean himself up a little, the feeling coming back into his knees and feet. He laid there for a while afterwards, hearing Conrad stomp out, shouting about not coming back tomorrow because Worth was a fucking bastard and Conrad didn't want any more of this, but Worth knew better. He knew that Conrad was rushing out because it was getting close to dawn and if he didn't run home he'd have to stay there all day, and he couldn't live in that kind of filth. And Worth knew that at three in the morning tomorrow Conrad would be back for another try at the tango they danced, another meal, another orgasm. Whatever the reason for his coming back, he would come back, because somewhere along the way he and Worth had formed something akin to a relationship, and when things like that form it's because there is something that keeps both parties wanting more. Enough to give it a name, at least.

The doctor laughed at the thought of being _in a relationship_ with Conrad, and rolled over, coughing a little at his own laughter. He groaned, pushing himself unsteadily to his feet and wandering down the stairs, stumbling and nearly falling from the afterglow coursing through him, finding his pants, then his shirt, and slipping them on haphazardly. He went for his coat, pulling out a fresh smoke and lighting it, letting the nicotine even out the high and force blood back into his body, because the dizzy woozy feeling was great until it was time to go back upstairs. He didn't bother slipping on his coat, as he headed back upstairs a few moments later, hanging the thing on his door.

**6 AM – Last Minute Smoke and Sleep**

With the sun rising through the window, Worth stubbed out his cigarette on the nightstand beside his bed, curled up against the pillow and let his mind drift off into nicotine filled dreamland until tomorrow started the process all over again.


End file.
